12-11-2022, 02:38 AM
I can propose a connection between the cycle from the end of the last Crisis Era to now. Small-business formation would seem to peak in the low times of a 4T -- before the Crisis is at its most ferocious. Once social disruption from a big shooting war (Civil War, WW II) or mass-killing epidemic (COVID-19 has caused war-like casualties while disrupting the overall economy) the formation of new small businesses is tricky. When the time of Milk and Honey begins at the end of a Crisis, start-up businesses are not so attractive when work is steady and pay is reliable. Notice that the one thing that the Silent did not do was to start small businesses in large numbers aside from professional practices. (Professional practices pay their owners well, but once established they offer little potential for growth in employment or sales volume).
The Silent had relatively few high-profile business-formers: Warren Buffett (buy-and-hold purchases of businesses that could be nudged a little), the Koch brothers (buying up unglamorous operations cheaply), T. Boone Pickens (oil wildcatting), Michael Milken and Carl Icahn (vulture capitalism), Ted Turner (broadcasting), Ross Perot (government contracting), and Dave Thomas (fast food). The Missionaries (especially in supermarkets), the Lost, GI's, and even Boomers did more to establish. X, in contrast to the Silent, typically saw formal education more costly than it paid off and the meager pay and low glass ceilings in Corporate America unpromising, and was much more likely to start new businesses.
(aside from professional practices) than the Silent.
Figure that lots of large businesses going toward the Recrimination and Bureaucracy phases going into the Double-Zero decade without lots of business entering or in the mature phases (which also shows in inadequate tax revenues for government to keep things from falling apart) created a mess in its own right. Around 2000 the businesses in Prime and Peak areas were rare because the Silent had not formed those that would be strong generators of prosperity. The businesses in America were either immature or in terrible declines. The Crash of 2008 partially reflected that.
The Silent had relatively few high-profile business-formers: Warren Buffett (buy-and-hold purchases of businesses that could be nudged a little), the Koch brothers (buying up unglamorous operations cheaply), T. Boone Pickens (oil wildcatting), Michael Milken and Carl Icahn (vulture capitalism), Ted Turner (broadcasting), Ross Perot (government contracting), and Dave Thomas (fast food). The Missionaries (especially in supermarkets), the Lost, GI's, and even Boomers did more to establish. X, in contrast to the Silent, typically saw formal education more costly than it paid off and the meager pay and low glass ceilings in Corporate America unpromising, and was much more likely to start new businesses.
(aside from professional practices) than the Silent.
Figure that lots of large businesses going toward the Recrimination and Bureaucracy phases going into the Double-Zero decade without lots of business entering or in the mature phases (which also shows in inadequate tax revenues for government to keep things from falling apart) created a mess in its own right. Around 2000 the businesses in Prime and Peak areas were rare because the Silent had not formed those that would be strong generators of prosperity. The businesses in America were either immature or in terrible declines. The Crash of 2008 partially reflected that.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.